Bill Harris, QMI Agency

Just think how much the crime rate in Gotham could be reduced if they would just turn up the streetlights a bit.

I mean, wouldn't it be easier to keep an eye on the Penguin and all the other villains in the Batman universe if everything weren't so dark?

“It's noir!” said a laughing Ben McKenzie, who plays the young James Gordon in the new series Gotham, which is a Batman prequel coming to CTV and Fox this fall. “We can't have it too light.”

Literally and figuratively, I assume.

“You feel it's not quite the present but you can't quite define when it is, because it's Gotham,” McKenzie said of the atmosphere and look of the show.

McKenzie was in Toronto on Thursday as part of the annual Bell Media upfront presentation, as were co-stars Donal Logue, who plays Harvey Bullock, and Robin Lord Taylor, who plays Oswald Cobblepot, the young man who eventually will become the Penguin. McKenzie's rookie detective James Gordon will become Commissioner Gordon, of course, but Gotham is set many years before that.

“Yeah, there is,” McKenzie said when asked if there's pressure stepping into such a well-known world. "I think it's a responsibility. We're competitive, and we want to do it well.”

McKenzie meant that the cast members on Gotham are competitive with other Batman franchises, rather than being competitive with each other. Although that can work, too, given the fog of tension that Gotham endeavours to create.

Gotham exists in the era when the parents of Bruce Wayne, who is still a young boy, are murdered. While some actors might regard it as limiting in the sense that we know where the characters are going to end up – you know, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, etc. - McKenzie is taking a different view of it.

“I think it's incredibly freeing,” McKenzie said. “We know what the last shot of the last episode of the last season will be – hopefully it will be season 10 and not season one – but it's Bruce (Wayne), now a young man, putting on that suit and he's Batman. But I'm very interested in how the story gets to that point.”

Well, maybe it wouldn't get to that point if they'd just fix those damn streetlights. Just sayin'.

Also on hand at the Bell Media upfront were cast members from another new comic-book show, The Flash, which is coming this fall to CTV and CW. There's a scene in the pilot episode where the transformed title character stares into a mirror and marvels at his own stomach. Star Grant Gustin answered the big question:

“Those are my real abs,” Gustin said. “That took work.

“I just auditioned for Arrow (as Barry Allen), and I knew (The Flash) was a potential spinoff. But I thought there was no chance I was going to be cast in the first place, based on what it felt they were looking for, too. The breakdown was older than I am. And a lot of the guys there (auditioning) were blond and big. I was like, 'Aw crap, this one is not going to be me.'

“I don't know what happened, really. They said they saw Barry just inately built into my character. Whatever that means, I'm forever grateful.”

In other Bell Media news, a new project called the Super Bowl Canadian Ad Challenge will give Canadian advertisers an incentive to create big new ads for the Super Bowl. Certainly Canadians are known to complain about the fact that simulcasting means Canadians usually don't get the see the big U.S ad blitz.

“It obviously came out of that,” said Phil King, CTV president. “We always wondered, 'Why don't the Canadian advertisers save some fresh ads for the Super Bowl and get some free publicity out of it? ' So this is our way to edge them along and maybe give them a free Super Bowl spot. We'll give you an incentive to maybe make that day a little bigger for Canada.

“They can clear the U.S. versions of their ads if that applies to whatever company it is, that'll work, or create a new one. We're saying, 'Don't debut one on Jan. 2, just wait a few weeks.' That's what we're going to try to do, and we'll see if people want to do it. And if they do, maybe it goes to, 'Hey, what about the Grey Cup? What about the Oscars?' But one step at a time.”

Bell Media also announced on Thursday that it has renewed the Dave Foley sitcom Spun Out for a second season.